Virtual private meeting room

ABSTRACT

A conference session is established. Different unique identifications and persistent dedicated virtual private network conference rooms are assigned to different recipients. A conference session using one of the persistent dedicated virtual private network conference rooms assigned to a recipient is established using a communication device with a processor and memory and in response to an instruction from the recipient assigned the persistent dedicated virtual private network conference room. A network resource is allocated to the conference session established, based on a participant in the conference session logging in to the conference session using one of the unique identifications.

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

The present application is a continuation of and claims priority topending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 14/566,004, filed Dec. 10,2014, which is a continuation of pending U.S. patent application Ser.No. 14/230,259, filed on Mar. 31, 2014, now U.S. Pat. No. 8,943,139,which is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/763,965,filed on Feb. 11, 2013, now U.S. Pat. No. 8,732,244, which is acontinuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/466,209, filed onMay 8, 2012, now U.S. Pat. No. 8,402,091, which is a continuation ofU.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/787,562, filed on Apr. 16, 2007, nowU.S. Pat. No. 8,200,756, the disclosures of which are all incorporatedherein by reference in their entireties.

FIELD OF THE DISCLOSURE

The present invention relates to phone conferencing, multimediaconferencing, online conferencing, collaboration software, real-timecollaboration applications, and more specifically to a virtual privatemeeting room.

BACKGROUND OF THE DISCLOSURE

A need often arises for people to meet and share information, exchangedata or documents, discuss topics, or collaborate in preparing variousdocuments. It may not be desirable, or possible, for all of theparticipants in a meeting to be in the same physical location at thesame time, in which case meeting objectives may be achieved usingcommunication equipment or networks, and tools such as software toolsfor facilitating remote collaboration in a multimedia collaborationsession.

It can be useful for such a session to include a variety of media typesthat include the participants' voices, video images, shared documents,text messages, drawings, computer screen images, etc.

Several systems exist for teleconferencing or telecollaboration; inseveral such systems session information disappears a certain time afterthe session ends. For instance, a meeting participant that wants to seematerial presented during a previous session may not be able to find itseveral weeks after the session ended.

Some systems require a conference ID for each sessions, and some requirea distinct Conference ID and or user ID for sessions conducted usingdifferent types of media, for example if a user connects to a sessionvia a telephone and via a computer. Some systems don't allow a user tobe connected simultaneously from several devices, for instance both froma telephone and from a computer. In many systems the audio portion ismanaged on phones in a phone conference in parallel to a datacollaboration session on a different system—in this case each of thesessions has a different conference ID or entry code.

Another drawback of some prior art systems is that they allocateresources in advance and not only when a session actually starts. Forinstance some systems allocate telephony ports in advance, sometimes along time ahead. If the session does not start as planed the allocatedresources are released.

Therefore, it would be beneficial to provide improved systems andmethods for collaboration, which for example can overcome theillustrative drawbacks of existing collaboration tools mentioned orprovide new functionality to users.

SUMMARY

An aspect of an embodiment of the invention, relates to a system andmethod for conducting multi-user conferences, wherein each user canparticipate in the conference with multiple devices (e.g., telephonesand computers) and multiple types of communication, for example audio,video, text. In an exemplary embodiment of the invention, each user isprovided with a unique ID to identify the user when connecting via anyavailable device and/or by any method of communication and associate allof the user's devices to the same meeting. A user that can initiate aconference is associated with a virtual private fleeting room, whichdefines a virtual meeting place for multiple users to connect to andparticipate in a meeting when the virtual meeting room is activated.Optionally, the proceedings of the meeting are recorded and stored in adatabase associated with the virtual meeting room for future access bythe participants of the meeting. Optionally, the proceedings includeamong other things the list of participants in the meeting, the timeeach participant joined the meeting, a voice recording of theconversation in the meeting, a recording of any data transferred duringthe meeting, for example videos, files, text, and pictures.

In an exemplary embodiment of the invention, the data recorded from theproceedings of a conference is persistent and remains available afterthe conference is over. In some embodiments of the invention, themeeting room owner may edit the recorded data. Alternatively, therecorded data may not be edited but can be deleted by the meeting roomowner.

In an exemplary embodiment of the invention, when a user contacts aserver with one or more devices, each device may be identified to theserver by the unique user ID so that the server can join the device to acommon conference. In some embodiments of the invention, a conferenceinitiator schedules a conference by defining a virtual meeting room forconducting the conference, a time for the conference and a list ofuser's, which are identified by their user IDs that may participate inthe conference.

In some embodiments of the invention, the user dynamically activates hismeeting room, by accessing it and providing his credentials.

There is thus provided in accordance with an exemplary embodiment of theinvention a method of providing a multi-media conference meeting, themethod comprising: providing each of a plurality of users with a uniqueuser id; associating with each user, that is permitted to initiate aconference meeting, a persistent virtual private meeting room;establishing a conference session, in response to an activation act by ameeting initiator, said session is associated with the meetinginitiator's persistent virtual private meeting room; when a session isactive, establishing communications via a plurality of networkconnections and/or phone connections between users that are loggedin/dialed in to the conferencing session.

In some embodiments of the invention, the user is a meeting initiator;said session is associated with the meeting initiator's virtual privatemeeting room.

In some embodiments of the invention, a unique user id is a uniquenumber or unique string or a combination thereof; a unique user id is aunique telephone number or a unique email address or a combinationthereof; or the user is allocated more than one user id.

In some embodiments of the invention, communication is establishedbetween the user's client software and at least one server that enablecollaboration among the users of a conference session.

In some embodiments of the invention, the user can be connected to aconference session simultaneously from a plurality of devices.

In some embodiments of the invention, the user has the same unique userid for connecting from different devices.

In some other embodiments of the invention, the user selects the type ofcontent to receive on a particular device.

In yet other embodiments of the invention, the user can be connected toa session, simultaneously from a remote computer and from a phone orfrom a handheld or wireless device having telephony capabilities.

In some embodiments of the invention, the user has the same unique userid for connecting to a session from a phone and from a computer.

In other embodiments of the invention, the user connects to differentconference sessions using the same unique user id.

In some embodiments of the invention, the virtual private meeting roomowned by the meeting initiator of a conference session stores loginformation of the session or by the user initiating a conferencesession, stores content provided or presented during the session or bythe user initiating a conference session, stores content provided orpresented during sessions initiated by said user.

In some embodiments of the invention, the content includes anycombination of text files, text messages, slides, multi-media files,shared documents, video clips, music, participants' voices and drawings.

In some embodiments of the invention, communication is established whenthe conference session is active and wherein establishing communicationcomprises dynamic allocation and release of resources.

In other embodiments of the invention, allocation of resources occurswhen the user joins an active session; release of resources occurs whena user leaves an active session; allocation or release of resources isbased on at least one optimization criteria; and allocation or releaseof telephony ports is carried out when a phone connects to a when asession that is active.

There is also provided in accordance with an exemplary embodiment of theinvention a computer-readable medium having computer-executable set ofinstructions for performing steps for providing a multi-media conferencemeeting, the set of instructions comprising (a) providing each of aplurality of users with a unique user id; (b) associating with eachunique user id a virtual private meeting room; (c) establishing aconference session, in response to an activation act by the user that isa meeting initiator, said session is associated with the meetinginitiator's persistent virtual private meeting room; and (d) afterestablishing a conference session, establishing communications via aplurality of network connections between users that are logged in to theconferencing session.

There is also provided in accordance with an exemplary embodiment of theinvention a system for providing a conferencing or collaborationsession, comprising a) at least one management and control software; b)at least one computer server c) at least one storage device d) at leastone persistent database e) a plurality of communication devices; thesystem (a) providing each of a plurality of users with a unique user id;(b) associating with each user id a virtual private meeting room; (c)establishing a conference session, in response to an activation act by auser that is a meeting initiator, said session is associated with themeeting initiator's persistent virtual private meeting room; and (d)after establishing a conference session, establishing communications viaa plurality of network connections between users that are logged in tothe conferencing session.

In the above exemplary embodiments of the present invention the virtualprivate meeting room is preferably persistent and resources for theconference session are dynamically allocated.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE FIGURES

The present invention will be understood and better appreciated from thefollowing detailed description taken in conjunction with the drawings.Identical structures, elements or parts, which appear in more than onefigure, are generally labeled with the same or similar number in all thefigures in which they appear, wherein:

FIG. 1 is a schematic illustration of a conferencing system providingmulti-media conferencing services, in accordance with an exemplaryembodiment of the invention;

FIG. 2 is a flow chart of a process for providing or participating in aconference session, in accordance with an exemplary embodiment of theinvention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION EXEMPLARY EMBODIMENTS

The invention generally relates to a system, methods, and software forproviding multi-media conferencing or collaboration.

For clarity of the description, a non-limiting example of a multi-mediaconferencing service system is described as an exemplary embodiment ofthe invention.

FIG. 1 is a schematic illustration of a conferencing system 190providing multi-media conferencing services. Various elements shown inFIG. 1 cooperate to provide communication services among users,including telephony, multi-party conferencing and collaborativecommunications. By way of example, conferencing services are supportedby a service provider, which supplies a conferencing managementapplication 101 that operates with an interactive voice response (IVR)system 103 and an Distributed Internet Protocol (IP) conference bridge105 which is comprised of multiple distributed servers as described indetail in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/509,253 titled A SOFTWAREBRIDGE FOR MULTI-MEDIA TELECONFERENCING AND TELECOLLABORATION, filed 24Aug. 2006, the contents of which is incorporated herein by reference.Optionally, IVR system 103 controls directing of telephone connectionsinto conferences. Likewise, Web Server 201 directs PC client connectionsinto conferences. All aspects of each of the conferences are managed bya distributed IP conference bridge 105. Thus, a conference based uponelements, which use the devices will be managed by system 190 as asingle session.

In an exemplary embodiment of the invention, conference managementapplication 101 processes requests to schedule a conference for acertain date and time as well as ad hoc activation of conferences byusers accessing their own meeting rooms. Conference managementapplication 101 allows logging of events pertaining to a conferencesession and recording of the control of the session as well as thecontent of the session. Optionally, session control includes logging ofevents, such as for example, start time, stop time, logon and logofftimes of each participant, along with indexing markers or annotationsinserted during the session by a presenter or participants. In anexemplary embodiment of the invention, the recording process, includesrecording video, audio, textual messaging conversations, presentationsand collaborative work as well as data items, such as documents orimages, which are introduced by participants in the course of themeeting.

The conference management application 101 controls a database 111,wherein session information and data is preferably stored. Database 111may be replaced by a number of different databases interconnected andlocated in various locations and managed by conference managementapplication 101. Additionally, conference management application 101performs various management functions for controlling conferencingservices, such as identifying the participants of the conference,authenticating participants that attempt to access or activateconferences and redirecting of participates to dynamically allocatedresources in conference bridge 105.

A communications network 117 provides communications among the processesand sub-systems of the network service provider. Network 117 can includemultiple interconnected networks, with connectivity, for example, to theInternet or other public data networks. The network 117, in an exemplaryembodiment, is a data transport network, such as an Internet Protocol(IP) based network, an Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) network, a framerelay network, or a combination thereof. The network 117 interfaces withtelephony systems, such as a Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN)119 and a Private Branch Exchange (PBX) 121, via an IP gateway 125 or127.

The gateway 125 provides an interface between the network 117 and thePSTN 119. The gateway 125 allows a party using a conventional phone suchas telephone 124 or a wireless phone 126 to dial into the distributed IPConference bridge 105. IP Phones such as SIP Phone 141 can connect tothe IP conferencing system directly through the IP network without an IPGateway. It is noted that the SIP phone 141 can be implemented as astand-alone device or as a software client, for example on a personalcomputer.

Similarly, the gateway 127 couples the network 117 to a private branchexchange (PBX) 121, which supports one or more PBX telephones 122. Inthis example, the PBX 121 resides at the user's site. The PBX 121 isoften of proprietary design and function, but presents a standardsignaling and trunk interface in order to be connected to conventionaltelephone networks. Gateway 127 enables telephone 122 to participate inconferences through the network 117.

In an exemplary embodiment of the invention, personal computers 137, 139and voice over IP phones (e.g., SIP phone 141) are connected to network117. Optionally, personal computers 137, 139 may require the use of asoftware client (not shown) to enable the transfer of data from theclient stations to system 190.

In an exemplary embodiment of the invention each of a plurality of usersis provided by system 190 with a unique user ID. Optionally the user IDis provided by management application 101. The unique user ID is aunique number or a unique string or a combination thereof. The uniqueuser ID can be a unique telephone number or a unique email address or acombination thereof. The unique user ID serves the user to connect frommultiple devices to a conference session, for instance from telephone122 and from computer 137 and be recognized as a single user controllingmultiple devices in a concurrent session. Optionally these connectionsare established simultaneously, although some devices may be usedsimultaneously and some may be used sequentially as the need arisesduring the conversation. The unique user ID also serves the user forconnecting to different sessions that occur at different times. In someexemplary embodiments of the present invention, the need to recognize auser using more than a single device arises when users would use onedevice to transfer audio signal from and to the conference and anotherdevice to transfer data from and to the conference. Such exemplarysituation arises when a user does not have a microphone connected to hiscomputer, for example, or when the user's computer lacks a sound card,or if the user's computer is connected to a low band connection whichwill not effectively convey both data and voice information from and tothe conference.

In some embodiments of the invention, a user is allocated more than oneuser ID, for example one to identify the user as he/she logs onto system190 and a second user ID to identify a meeting room for the user (asdescribed below). Optionally, one user ID may be a function of theother, for example the second user ID may be the first unique user IDwith an additional number appended to it or removed from it. The uniqueuser ID is used for example to allow the user to log in to scheduleevents or respond to invitations to schedule events, or to allow system190 to link between conversations conducted by the user with more thanone device (e.g., PC and telephone). In contrast the meeting room ID maybe given by the user to others in order to allow them to enter hismeeting room to conduct meetings.

In some embodiments of the invention, the unique ID comprises a uniquenumber or a string of characters which is allocated by system 190 orselected by the user and verified for uniqueness by system 190. In someembodiments of the invention, the unique user ID may be a telephonenumber or an email of the user.

In an exemplary embodiment of the invention, a virtual private meetingroom is associated with each unique user id. All information associatedwith a conference session or meeting, such as information presentedduring the meeting, is associated with the virtual private meeting roomof the meeting initiator. Optionally, the information comprises thesession log information of the participants, content provided orpresented during the session, wherein content includes any combinationof text files, text messages, slides, multi-media files, shareddocuments, video clips, music, participants' voices and drawings.

In an exemplary embodiment of the invention, the information associatedwith the virtual private meeting room is saved in database 111 and isstored indefinitely. Therefore, the virtual private meeting room isconsidered persistent, since information associated with previousconference sessions can be accessed at any time in the future after aconference was conducted. To maintain persistency of the conferencefiles and data, each conference file or data is associated with a UserID and is stored such that each such user whose ID is associated withsaid file or data may later access or retrieve the files and dataassociated with his ID. Data stored in the database 111 can include dataassociated with each conference, such as the names of the participants,the location of each participants, information about each participant,the time the conference begun and ended, the materials used, themessages exchanged, the documents sent to participants, notes made byany of the participants, a recording of the conference, meta dataassociated with the conference to include statistical data, dataassociated with a number of conferences, for example a series ofinterrelated conferences, meta data associated with a number ofconferences, including statistical data, usage times, talk times, thenumber of documents exchanged, the bandwidth taken and the like.

In an exemplary embodiment of the invention a user initiates aconference meeting by accessing management application 101. Accessingcan be from a client software, for instance from a web browser (e.g.,accessing a web page that is designed to let the user schedule ameeting) or from Microsoft outlook (e.g., using the calendar to schedulemeetings or from a specially designed client software. The process ofinitiating a meeting comprises providing a meeting name or meetingsubject, providing a date and time and duration of the meeting,providing a list of participants, wherein each participant is identifiedby a unique user ID, and optionally providing additional information.Alternatively a user can activate a meeting in an “Ad hoc” manner byconnecting to system 190, provide his meeting room ID, and initiatorpassword. Once the user has “opened” his/her meeting room other userscan be notified to join the conference session.

In an exemplary embodiment of the invention, a user can join aconference by logging into system 190 and requesting to enter a specificmeeting room, or system 190 may be set to automatically “pull” the userinto concurrent conferences which requested his/her participation assoon as they login.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart 200 of a process for providing or participating ina conference session, in accordance with an exemplary embodiment of theinvention. In an exemplary embodiment of the invention, a user connects(205) to system 190 with a PC (e.g., personal computer 137) or atelephone (e.g.. telephone 122, 124) or any other communication device.Optionally, the user may provide a meeting room ID of the conference inwhich the user is interested to participate (210) and the ID ispreferably validated (215). Optionally, system 19 determines (220) ifthe meeting room for accommodating the conference is a valid meetingroom that was defined in system 190. If the meeting room ID is not validsystem 190 will indicate that an error (230) has occurred and denyservice or allow the user to reenter the meeting room D. If the meetingroom ID is a valid ID, system 190 determines if the meeting room isactivated (225) to allow users to enter and participate in a conference.If the meeting room has been activated for a conference the user enters(280) the meeting room and joins the conference, wherein the user mayparticipate by viewing the conference material and contribute to theconference. However if the meeting room is not activated system 190determines (235) if the user is the owner of the meeting room and canthen initiate a conference. If the user is not the owner of the meetingroom the user will enter (260) into a waiting state, wherein system 190will periodically query (270) the status of the meeting room and if itbecomes available allow the user to enter (280). When the user entersthe meeting room his device (PC or phone or other communication device)is automatically redirected to an allocated server in the distributed IPconference bridge (282). In case of phone the phone is redirected fromthe IVR to the distributed conference bridge, and in the case of a PCclient application the client application receives a list of availableserver and establishes an IP connected to the one of the servers. Thesystem may also dynamically allocated additional conference servers toserve this conference in case resources on one of the serversparticipating in this conference are exhausted.

If the user is the owner of the meeting room the user will beauthenticated by providing (240) the owner password, which will bevalidated (245) in database 111 by system 190. Other now known or laterdeveloped authentication methods can also be applied by those skilled inthe art. Optionally, after verifying that the user is the owner of themeeting room, system 190 will activate (250) a conference using themeeting room. In this phase Management system 101 dynamically allocatesresources on one or more servers in the distributed conference bridge105 to the conference (252) and the user enters the meeting room (280)as is described above.

In an exemplary embodiment of the invention, once a user has activated ameeting room, the user may provide IDs of users or groups of users thatare allowed to join the conference or open the conference to any userthat is interested in joining. In some embodiments of the invention, thelist of users that are allowed to participate in the conference isprovided when scheduling the conference.

In some embodiments of the invention, users cannot enter the meetingroom if the meeting room owner is not logged in. Alternatively, usersthat were invited to a scheduled conference may enter the meeting roomand begin the conference even without participation of the owner of themeeting room.

In some embodiments of the invention, if the owner logs out the meetingroom is closed down and any active conference is ended. Optionally,users that participated in the conference may have access to the recordsthat were created by the conference and stored on database 111.

In some embodiments of the invention, the owner of the meeting room isthe first presenter and the other participants are not provided withprivileges allowing such participants to change documents or uploaddocuments or make notations on a shared document. In other alternativeembodiments of the present invention each user, whether owner of themeeting room or not is provided with privileges with respect topresenting, changing or editing documents, making notations and thelike. Such privileges can be provided prior to the conference based onpredetermined user preferences or owner preferences.

In some embodiments, the system and methods of the invention provide aclient-server infrastructure capable of supporting multimediaconferencing activities in a virtual private meeting room. Theclient-server infrastructure supports data persistence, so that datafiles associated with the virtual private room can be stored forsubsequent access.

In a preferred embodiment of the present invention, the meeting roomresources are allocated by the system 190 only once the conferencesession is activated. The resources will be typically dynamicallyallocated such that available resources such as hard disk space, bandwidth, processor time and like resources are provided to the activatedmeeting room according to the number of participants which joinedeffectively. Thus, even if a conference is scheduled for hundreds ofusers and only a handful or users eventually join the conference, suchconference (event) resources are limited to the number of participantsthat actually joined. In practice, once a participant joins theconference the system 190 will review its available resources andallocate additional resources which are necessary to maintain anefficient conference. System 190 is provided with predetermineddefinitions of which resources are required to obtain a the level ofservice expected from the conference, such as what is the amount of diskspace, band width, processor time necessary, and the like. Optimizationcriteria may be used to enhance the quality of service provided duringthe event. Such can include the expected bandwidth available to eachparticipant, the quality of video or audio provided to each participant,the distance between each of the servers and each of the participants,the location where conference materials are stored, the availability ofstorage for each participant, and the like. For better quality ofservice additional resources will be required, though these areallocated, as noted above, on the basis of participants effectivelyjoining the conference. The resources may also be allocated and releasedbased on the optimization criteria. Thus, in one exemplary embodiment ofthe invention, if to provide better video or audio quality additionalresources are to be allocated, and if such resources are available, suchresources will be allocated when a particular participant joins or is ofneed of such resources.

In some embodiments of the present invention resource allocated to anevent are releases back to system 190 when a user leaves an activesession. Such resources may be reallocated to other ongoing events.

In some embodiments of the present invention telephone ports areallocated to an event only when a telephone connects to a session, ifsuch session is active. Such allocation is efficient since personswishing to connect to an event will not be allocated a port until suchtime when the event is active and the participants can begin theconference. Until such time, the waiting participants are put on holdthus releasing some of the telephony ports for the use of otherparticipants in other ongoing “live” events.

The present invention has been described using non-limiting detaileddescriptions of embodiments thereof that are provided by way of exampleand are not intended to limit the scope of the invention. It should beunderstood that features described with respect to one embodiment may beused with other embodiments and that not all embodiments of theinvention have all of the features shown in a particular figure ordescribed with respect to one of the embodiments. It is noted that someof the above described embodiments may describe the best modecontemplated by the inventors and therefore include structure, acts ordetails of structures and acts that may not be essential to theinvention and which are described as examples.

While the above description has focused on methods, it is meant to alsoencompass apparatus for carrying out the invention. The apparatus may bea system comprising of hardware and software. The apparatus may be asystem, such as, programmed computers or a network appliance. Theapparatus may include various computer readable media having suitablesoftware thereon, for example, diskettes and computer and/or flash RAM.

Structure and acts described herein are replaceable by equivalents,which perform the same function, even if the structure or acts aredifferent, as known in the art. Therefore, only the elements andlimitations as used in the claims limit the scope of the invention. Whenused in the following claims, the terms “comprise”, “include”, “have”and their conjugates mean “including but not limited to”.

1-20. (canceled)
 21. A method, comprising: allocating, by a systemcomprising a processor, a different persistent virtual conference roomof a plurality of persistent virtual conference rooms to each of aplurality of users; assigning, by the system, each unique useridentifier of a plurality of user identifiers to a correspondingdifferent persistent virtual conference room; and facilitating, by thesystem, an establishing of conference sessions using the persistentvirtual conference rooms in response to activation acts by the pluralityof users, wherein a dynamic allocation of communication resourcessupports communications among users that are logged into the conferencesessions based on the unique user identifiers assigned to users of theplurality of users that are logged in to the conference sessions. 22.The method according to claim 21, wherein resources presented during theconference sessions can be edited by owners of the persistent virtualconference rooms in which the conference sessions take place.
 23. Themethod according to claim 21, wherein resources presented during theconference sessions in the persistent virtual conference rooms remainavailable to users that logged into the conference sessions, in thepersistent virtual conference rooms after conclusions of the conferencesessions.
 24. The method according to claim 21, wherein informationabout the conference sessions remains available in association with thepersistent virtual conference rooms after conclusions of the conferencesessions.
 25. The method according to claim 24, wherein the informationabout the conference sessions includes times that each participant inthe conference sessions logs on and logs off of the conference sessions.26. The method according to claim 24, wherein the information about theconference sessions includes annotations to the resources presentedduring the conference sessions.
 27. The method according to claim 24,wherein the information about the conference sessions includescollaborative information about collaborations between participants inthe conference sessions.
 28. The method according to claim 24, whereinthe information about the conference sessions includes information aboutrelationships between the conference sessions.
 29. The method accordingto claim 21, wherein a shared unique user identifier is shared amongeach of a plurality of distinct devices concurrently connected to a userin a conference session.
 30. The method according to claim 21, whereinthe communication resources are released when users leave activeconference sessions.
 31. A machine-readable storage medium, comprisingexecutable instructions that, when executed by a processor, facilitateperformance of operations, comprising: allocating a different persistentvirtual meeting room of a plurality of persistent virtual meeting roomsto each of a plurality of participants; assigning each unique identifierof a plurality of identifiers to a corresponding different persistentvirtual meeting room of the plurality of persistent virtual meetingrooms; and facilitating establishing of meeting sessions using thepersistent virtual meeting rooms in response to activation acts by theplurality of participants, wherein a dynamic allocation of communicationresources supports communications among participants that are loggedinto the meeting sessions based on the unique identifiers assigned toparticipants of the plurality of participants that are logged in to themeeting sessions.
 32. The machine-readable storage medium according toclaim 31, wherein resources presented during the meeting sessions can beedited by owners of the persistent virtual meeting rooms in which themeeting sessions take place.
 33. The machine-readable storage mediumaccording to claim 31, wherein resources presented during the meetingsessions in the persistent virtual meeting rooms remain available tousers that logged into the meeting sessions, in the persistent virtualmeeting rooms after conclusions of the meeting sessions.
 34. Themachine-readable storage medium according to claim 31, whereininformation about the meeting sessions remains available in associationwith the persistent virtual meeting rooms after conclusions of themeeting sessions.
 35. The machine-readable storage medium according toclaim 34, wherein the information about the meeting sessions includestimes that each participant in the meeting sessions logs on and logsoff.
 36. The machine-readable storage medium according to claim 34,wherein the information about the meeting sessions includes annotationsto the resources presented during the meeting sessions.
 37. Themachine-readable storage medium according to claim 34, wherein theinformation about the meeting sessions includes collaborativeinformation about collaborations between participants in the meetingsessions.
 38. The machine-readable storage medium according to claim 34,wherein the information about the meeting sessions includes informationabout relationships between the meeting sessions.
 39. A systemcomprising: at least one processor; and at least one memory that storesexecutable instructions that, when executed by the at least oneprocessor, facilitate performance of operations comprising: allocating adifferent virtual meeting room of a plurality of virtual meeting roomsto each of a plurality of users; assigning each unique identifier of aplurality of identifiers to a corresponding different virtual meetingroom of the plurality of virtual meeting rooms; and facilitatingestablishing of meeting sessions using the virtual meeting rooms inresponse to activation acts by the plurality of users, wherein a dynamicallocation of communication resources supports communications amongusers that are logged into the meeting sessions based on the uniqueidentifiers assigned to users of the plurality of users that are loggedin to the meeting sessions, and wherein information about the meetingsessions remains available in association with the virtual meeting roomsafter conclusions of the meeting sessions.
 40. The system according toclaim 39, wherein the information about the meeting sessions includescollaborative information about collaborations between users in themeeting sessions.